We discovered that most interview questions have phrases at the end of them that ruin the questions’ effectiveness. These phrases include, “How did you solve it?” “How did you overcome that?,” and, “How did you successfully come through that?”We’ve completely lost the opportunity to hear about their failures and struggles because we literally told the candidate to only share their successes.

Ruining  A Question

How do you actually assess whether someone can handle impossible deadlines, for example? Simply ask the question, “Could you tell me about a time you faced an impossible deadline?” or, “Could you tell me about a time your boss gave you an impossible deadline?”If you want to hire people who can survive in chaotic and ambiguous environments, you could ask, “Could you tell me about a time you faced competing priorities?”

What To Ask

What’s the worst part about working at your company? Is it a lack of growth and development opportunities? Or perhaps impossible deadlines? Or ambiguous and chaotic organizational structures? If you want to ensure that any new hires are going to succeed, you need to assess their ability to survive and thrive amidst these negative aspects. If your company tends to assign projects with unrealistic deadlines, you owe it to yourself to hire people that can handle that without cracking under the pressure.

Hiring Resilient People

Of course, in an ideal world you would fix all of your organization’s negative aspects. But let’s be honest: The typical talent executive does not have the political wherewithal to snap their fingers and make those changes. 
So you’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt, and that means hiring people who can handle these tough situations.

What To Ask

Similar ideas to What To Ask

Failure to Actually Ask

Questions to Assess the Emotional Intelligence of a Candidate

What your interviewer is looking for